


Dreams and Memories are Blurring into One

by KiwisAndTea



Series: Dreamer, Believer [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Domesticity, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Tony Stark Has A Heart, aka it doesn't exist here, catch me over here using an AOS cliche for my own ends, it is big and full of Peter, this is where infinity war comes to die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-10 17:37:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwisAndTea/pseuds/KiwisAndTea
Summary: A mission goes sideways and Tony and Peter find themselves in the crosshairs.No damage is done, but something irrevocable forms between them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This follows the post-Homecoming canon (for the most part), and I know the first chapter is short and kind of angst-riddled, but listen. We can't have nice things until we've suffered a bit first, yeah? And I promise, this will mostly be fluff with an unhealthy serving of Iron Dad/Spider Son because I've been reading nothing but unbridled angst lately and you people are animals. Just let them be happy! (I say, planning to pop the paradise bubble. If you want angst, stick around for the second part).  
> This is not my first fic, but it is my first of this pairing and the very first I've ever posted soooo, go easy on me?

It was supposed to be a simple mission.

When FRIDAY passed along Natasha's summons for a mission briefing, Tony had been down in the lab with Peter working on upgrades for the Spider-Man suit. The teenager had straightened immediately from the table he had been bent over for more than an hour tinkering with web shooters, wide brown eyes locking excitedly on Tony, shimmering with pure, unadulterated hope. Despite turning down his offer to join the Avengers, the kid had been waiting with bated breath for another big mission. Given the choice between crushing his dreams and allowing him conditional attendance to the meeting, well, there really had been no choice.

That was how Tony found himself in the conference room, sitting beside a jittery sixteen-year-old, while Agent Romanoff informed the ragtag group of heroes of their assignment.

"In SHIELD, we would call it an 0-8-4."

"And in English?" Tony remembered asking, because Peter snorted quietly and something dangerously unhealthy for his ego swelled in his chest.

"An object of unknown origin. Could be anything from a useless hunk of rock to a weapon of mass destruction."

On the other side of the table, Bruce shifted, looking for all the world like he wished he hadn't come back from space. "So a normal Tuesday, then," he had said, and a gentle rumble of laughter filled the room. In that moment, Tony had felt good.

It should have been a simple mission.

A simple extraction and containment, something that would get them all back in the government's good graces. That was why he had told Peter he could go, because chances were they were picking up a piece of space junk in backwoods Washington where the biggest threat to their livelihood was a bear and Tony was desperate for a way to satiate the kid's need to help without putting him in mortal danger. This? This was perfect.

Peter rambled the entire flight to the Pacific Northwest and only half of it pertained to the mission. Then, the second he stepped off the Quinjet all was silent (and Tony heaved a large sigh of relief), Peter's eyes drawn up and around until he'd done a full circle, mesmerized, if Tony had to guess, by so many trees. Kid had probably never left the city in his life. Even squished between him and Vision in the back of an SUV tracing the winding mountain roads, Peter's gaze fixated on the endless green, leaning over Tony to get a better look. It was difficult to lament his lost personal space when the smile plastered itself onto the young hero's face.

Hiking the last mile and a half to the object's location had not even wiped the glee from his face as he trundled ahead only to fall behind to look at a flower or climb a tree. His excitement was contagious and endearing. Peter was just a kid.

It had to be a simple mission.

The object itself was sticking partially out of a hillside, likely uncovered by recent rains and discovered by hikers two days earlier. Roughly cylindrical in shape - at least from what they could see of it - and largely a matte gray color inlaid with a pattern of pinkish-orange, it was easily determined to be of alien origin, and not the rock Tony had hoped for. Nevertheless, it appeared harmless - broken or a galactic paperweight, he didn't care.

Natasha set up a perimeter and checked it religiously given that they were not far from other popular nature trails. Bruce analyzed the frustratingly little data they had received, sat on a log and hunched over several high-tech pieces of equipment. Vision worked on setting up a suitable transport for their prize while Peter had been delegated the task of pulling it out of the soil. Tony supervised.

"You're hovering," Peter said, adjusting the web shooters on his wrists and giving his mentor a pointed look over his shoulder.

"I am not," Tony retorted.

"Are too."

"Tony, back off," Natasha commanded, materializing from the trees without a sound.

Reluctantly, the man took three - and _only_ three - steps back. He had initiated the Baby Monitor Protocol for a reason, and while he had complete faith in Spider-Man's ability to tug a piece of alien junk out of the dirt, it did not mean he was not going to be close by just in case. If all it was useful for was laughing when the boy struggled, then so be it.

He was glad he did.

It wasn't such a simple mission, after all.

Behind him, Bruce and Vision were arguing over the results of one of the scans they had taken when they arrived, because something about mass-density and filamentous hyphal cells that he tuned out of immediately. Instead, he watched Peter plant his feet, shoot his webs at the object, and begin to pull it out slowly. Decaying plant material rolled down the slope to Tony's feet as Natasha inserted herself in the conversation ("it's been sitting in the forest for who knows how long, of course there's a lot of carbon"), and for a second he found comfort in how close to pre-Sokovia 'normal' the moment felt. Peter's face tightened in concentration, tugging at each web in turn, trying to rock the object out of compacted dirt.

The thin etched design seemed to flicker as if glinting in sunlight, but the sky was overcast and the canopy above them relatively obtrusive. A trick of the light, what little of it there was, or his own old eyes and paranoia willing him to believe what was not there. Yet, it happened again, just a split second of brighter pink-orange, enough to make Tony question his faculties. He was seeing things. It wouldn't be the first time. Peter was wiggling it out of the ground and they'd be back home in no time. Easy-peasy.

Unfortunately, Tony could not ignore the dread building up in his stomach, in his chest, constricting his breathing, warning him of danger, telling him to get out. The object flickered again, he was sure of it, and then again, and again. He had seen enough weapons (designed enough, too) in his lifetime for that little bit of light to unsettle him to his core. So it wasn't a useless piece of rock, but what were the chances of it being a weapon of mass destruction? The conversation behind him faded out the faster it flashed, beginning to race faster than his own heartbeat.

That was no paperweight. With Tony's luck, it was a bomb.

None of them were armored up. It hadn't been necessary, there were no enemies out there. Nat was packing and Vision could take care of himself, but Tony and Peter had left their suits at home, and it was with that thought that Tony's heart dropped into his shoes. They were unprotected. They were unprotected with an alien device that was most definitely gearing up for _something_. He was supposed to protect Peter, to keep him out of trouble, out of danger, to keep him safe and he'd let the kid out on a mission in a t-shirt with Einstein's tri-color face printed on the front and he was an idiot. A failure.

Unlike every other near-death experience, time did not slow down. It sped up.

The boy tugged again and the thing was perilously close to sliding right out of the hole it lived in, more dirt and leaves tumbling down. The barely noticeable flashing continued to gain speed until it was nearly steady, a soft glow like a candle flame behind frosted glass, and Tony knew he had to act now.

Peter's name was ripped from his rapidly closing throat just before he took a step forward and launched himself towards the boy, placing himself between him and the device, hoping that if nothing else he could shield him with his body, take the brunt of the damage, do anything to _protect Peter_.

Tony remembered hitting the ground, remembered that still moment and Peter's eyes practically laughing at him for overreacting, and then the cloud. It wasn't heavy like smoke as it fell between them, but it was undoubtedly pinkish-orange.

Then things went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm only posting it because I put the effort into tagging and formatting it on here a month ago and if I don't it'll be deleted and I'd have to do it all again when/if I decide to post later so... Here you go. Of the estimated seven chapters, I have three and a half written, and have been working on other projects for the pair due to writer's block here. The second chapter is also up here and formatted, so that'll come out soon, but I will probably only continue to post if there's interest. And to finish the whole thing? Someone's going to have to pester me.
> 
> I welcome constructive criticism, but honestly I'm a smol bean and if you have nothing nice to say I'm going to ask you not to say anything at all and spare me. Otherwise, I'm here and on tumblr (same name), so if you want to yell at me for what I just did, I'm ready to yell back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's part two. Can't wait to see how many of you are confused.

The noise jolted Tony so severely into consciousness he was certain he was going into cardiac arrest. It most definitely was not the hard rock guitar of his usual alarm, and as he stumbled out of a mess of blankets and to his feet, he realized it was an equally familiar sound. The smoke alarm.

Tony made a break for — well, he wasn't sure yet, the beeping was difficult to pinpoint when it was so damn loud, reverberating off the walls and seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. He stumbled into the hall, nearly running into the wall on his way out as if he had forgotten where the door was, and followed the smell of smoke more than the sound of the alarm all the way to the kitchen. Through the growing haze, he could make out a figure by the stove, one he would know anywhere even if it weren't gesticulating wildly in panic.

"Peter!" Tony yelled, causing the boy to jump at least two feet in the air in surprise. He pulled Peter away and took the slightly on fire pan from the burner, dumping it in the sink to sizzle out beneath the water. "Open some windows."

Obedient as ever, the figure faded to do as he was told while Tony grabbed a dish towel and climbed onto a chair to fan the very angry alarm before the fire department came busting down his door (again). Fortunately, it was not his first rodeo. Given a means to escape, the thick air began to clear quickly out of the room, silencing the smoke detector in less than a minute.

"I'm sorry!"

His shoulders slumped, grip on the towel tightening now that he finally had a moment to process what had just happened. A pain in his chest reminded him acutely of how these situations never got any easier. "Jesus, Peter!" The kid squirmed as he stepped off the chair, doing his best to shake off the worry that nevertheless lined his bones — Peter knew the enormity of what he had done, the palpitations it gave Tony, he didn't need a lecture. "Food or an experiment?"

Smoke filtering out of open back door, he could finally get a good look at the boy's guilty expression. He hardly met Tony's eye. "It was, uh, it was kind of… both." A pause and a small cough and then, "I saw this thing on Pinterest and-and it looked really good so I thought, maybe, I could- because you have that big meeting today- I could make it, but we didn't have all the right ingredients — I mean, what's rhubarb, anyway? — and so I was experimenting a little bit, and clearly this is what people mean by a total Pinterest fail, but I tried to make it work, but it just got really sticky and-and I'm _sorry_ , I really am, I just wanted to make something nice for you because you—"

"Okay, okay. Take a breath, kid, jeez." Tony rubbed the spot between his eyes where all of his Peter-related headaches began and glanced at the microwave clock. "That's very nice of you, Peter, but it's seven-thirty in the morning. It's summer vacation! Why can't you sleep 'til noon like a normal kid?"

"I'm not a normal kid."

He snorted. "You're telling me."

The smile that comment put on Peter's face was short-lived. "I'm sorry, dad," he mumbled again.

"It's alright, Pete. I'm not mad," Tony assured the boy, pulling him into a hug that was immediately reciprocated. "But what did I say about cooking?"

"If it isn't cereal, it isn't safe."

"Damn right." Breaking from the embrace, Tony held the boy at arm's length to get a good look at him, scanning him for any bodily harm. "Are you alright? Any burns?" Besides some redness around his eyes, nothing looked amiss, but his son had a bad habit of hiding injuries from him for some ungodly reason, and he wasn't letting him go until he was one-hundred percent certain Peter made it out unscathed.

"I'm fine, dad. Stop—" he smacked Tony's hand away from his face, "stop it. I'm good, look, not even a scratch."

He was right, of course. Tony sighed. "You're killing me, kid."

This time, Peter's smile lasted. "Sorry."

With a roll of his eyes, he turned and grabbed a bowl and mug from the cabinet. "I told you, it's okay. Say it again and it's money straight in the jar." Behind him, he could hear the typical teenager sass being mumbled beneath his breath. Peter hated the 'Sorry Jar,' but Tony hated Peter blaming himself and apologizing for everything a lot more; after dealing with his odd guilt complex for two years, something had had to be done. Thus, the jar had been born. (After seven years, Peter's college fund had gained over five-hundred dollars).

Tony dumped some Cheerios into the bowl and poured himself a cup of coffee — the one thing Peter could make without burning the house down, apparently. The calendar on the fridge with the repeatedly circled date caught his eye as he got the milk out, so overly doodled the actual note was barely legible. Just a few more days. "You still going over to Ned's today?"

"Yep," Peter said, popping the 'p' and immediately digging into the bowl of food set in front of him. "We're gonna build the First Order Star Destroyer."

"You two are First Order Nerds."

"Says the man with a car named Arwen."

"The back talk," Tony said with over-exaggerated astonishment, a hand splayed on his chest. "From my- from my own son. It's true what they're saying, nothing is sacred anymore." While Peter laughed, he took a sip out of his favorite "no flux given" mug, coffee replacing the rapidly retreating adrenaline that had originally made him so alert. "I'm going to have to have a talk with Rhodey about his horrible influence on you."

"It's not Uncle Rhodey, dad, it's you."

"Why on Earth he insists on corrupting his own nephew, I'll never know. I try so hard, you know, to raise a model child, one who eats his greens and respects his elders and doesn't call his father out _in the sanctity of his own home before eight a.m._ "

Across the table, he was given a bored look. "Are you done?"

A shrug and another drink of bitter coffee and he said, "for now. I'm sure I'll have more when he comes for your birthday dinner on Thursday." That got him an eyeroll and nothing more, making him wonder at the flippancy of teenagers. Sometimes even a babbler like Peter was impossible to talk to for more than, like, two minutes, as if he would suddenly remember he was a teenager and it was _so totally not cool_ to talk his old man's ear off about every little thing that crossed his mind. To say those silences didn't cause Tony to reminisce about the good old days would be a big fat lie.

For a moment, he let the silence rest between them before picking up a new topic. "Ever come to a decision over the swatches I gave you?"

Peter's head picked up almost immediately, and Tony hid his relief behind the edge of his cup. "Oh yeah! Definitely medium-tan leather for the interior, you know, so it doesn't get too hot but also won't stain as easily… And, um, red, for the exterior."

"Really? A classic hotrod red? That's it? You don't want to get fun with it?"

Shoulders lifting in a shrug, Peter's gaze fell back to his half eaten breakfast where he began drowning the little circles with his spoon. "And maybe a-a blue racing stripe or something."

Tony's eyebrows raised with piqued interest. "Blue on red? Now, that's daring, mixing primaries like that. I like it. So, maybe, if you come home before curfew tonight, we can finish 'er up and send her in to the shop while we're gone this weekend and," he said, dragging out the last word until Peter met his eyes, "christen her Monday."

The boy's brown eyes blew wider, lips twitching into a smile. "Wow. Really?"

"Yep," he replied, and it was Tony's turn to pop the 'p' with a smirk. "A big day for everyone."

"That'd- yeah, that'd be awesome." Peter's phone buzzed on the table, capturing his attention for a second before he started shoveling the rest of his cereal into his mouth. "That's Ned. I'll be home by six, I promise!" He stood, pocketing the cellphone and taking the time to rinse his dishes and put them in the dishwasher before he ran for the door. "Bye dad!"

"See ya later, Squirt," he called back, just before the door slammed shut.

The kitchen still smelled distinctly of smoke.

* * *

 

Tony sat in the garage, feet kicked up on the hood of the '74 Plymouth Barracuda he and Peter had been fixing up for almost two years now, staring at an old picture he'd found in the depths of his wallet. He had been digging around for a receipt earlier and it just… appeared, catching him off guard, although somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was in there. Peter was approximately ten years old, looking at the camera with the largest, most overly-enthusiastic grin on his face while Tony — an obviously younger Tony, with lush dark hair (Peter hadn't started causing him to go gray until middle school) and an easy smile — stood behind him, hands on his shoulders. The two of them posed beneath a plexiglass arch of jellyfish going round and round their doughnut-shaped tank, and those five seconds it took for Rhodey to snap the picture were the only five seconds Peter wasn't glued to the glass. With some unknown difficulty, the full memory did come back to him.

Peter had just seen _Finding Nemo_ , like, the month before, and almost every day after that, Peter had watched _Finding Nemo_. After its second viewing, he came to the very calm and reasonable decision that he wanted to be a 'fish scientist,' completely unaware of the betrayal Tony felt at such a declaration (his kid wanted to waste his genius on studying _plankton_? In retrospect, that might have been his first gray hair). But Tony had bit his tongue, endured endless hours of 'Just Keep Swimming,' adopted the nickname Squirt, positive it was just a phase, that he would grow out of it, return to a hard science like engineering or physics where he belonged, but it lingered. Rendered into a puddle of goo by the mere sight of wide, pleading, and glassy brown eyes, Tony had caved and taken him to the aquarium for his birthday, actually had a great time despite his best friend mocking him for being a softy. Peter, in preparation for his future career, had done a tone of research and spent the afternoon teaching the two adult men with advanced educations a thing or two.

His smile now was fond. After almost a year of torture, Peter finally returned to the career path he was meant for, but the fish thing never really left. He still wouldn't eat most seafood, and Tony still called him Squirt, even went so far as to ask for some fin instead of a high-five, and the two of them had a Shark Week tradition to be gearing up for in a couple of weeks. The photograph brought all of that back in a rush from some dark corner of his mind. He hadn't forgotten, but… he hadn't just simply remembered, either. Perhaps he was getting old.

"Hey."

Tony startled at the voice, looking up to find Peter strolling through the open garage door. He stuffed the old picture into his pocket and glanced at his watch. "Six-oh-eight. Color me impressed."

"I did promise," he said, doing something on his phone before connecting it to the speakers. "Ready?"

Pulling his feet off the bare metal hood, Tony stood and clapped his hands together as the first chords of Back in Black rang through the room. The engine had been mostly put together since last autumn, and all that was left was to install some of the smaller things — the alternator, the battery, timing gears — things that would not take long to put in, but had been piling up in the workshop for months. His original plan for the car Peter had affectionately named Branwyn (and he was not about to complain when Leia had be the first suggestion) was to fix it up and give it to him for his sixteenth birthday, but between regular schoolwork, the Academic Decathlon, band, Spanish Club, and his part-time tutoring job, well, here they were a year later, Branwyn still sitting unfinished in his detached garage. This year was it. She was going to be done and given to Peter for his seventeenth birthday if he had to lock the two of them in there all night.

Peter had yet to inherit his caffeine dependency, but it was only a matter of time and having a project to focus on for twenty-odd hours.

They worked in tandem, like the well oiled machine Branwyn was about to be, few words passing between them because they didn't need to speak. They knew. They knew each other and they knew the car and nothing else was necessary. Peter passed him parts and tools before he even knew he needed them, Tony instructed with a simple flick of his wrist or nod of his head, they bonded. A small part of him feared its completion, because when the car was done and the keys were handed over, what would be left? It was hard enough these days to see his son for more than thirty minutes at a time, and Peter would be going off to college soon, and that kid with the goofy smile and eyes full of wonder would be even further from his grasp. He was wholly, and completely, unprepared.

"You're thinking about it again."

Tony cleared his throat, side-eyeing the smart-mouth he was absolutely not going to miss. At all. He could go to college right now, Tony wouldn't care. He'd be relieved. Wouldn't have to worry about what the kid could read on his face. "So, are you going to spill what's on your mind, or are we going to spend the night in silence?" he asked, transparent diversion be damned.

That got Peter squirming again. "I was just, um, thinking—"

"Uh oh." When all that met his joke was silence, he sighed. "I'm kidding. What were you thinking?"

Peter shifted, tightening a bolt with far more concentration than was needed. "Just that- if it was- and you can totally say no- I was thinking maybe, maybe- I mean, it would be cool if—"

"Spit it out, kid."

"Can Ned come camping with us?"

Tony paused his fiddling with the alternator to look over at Peter. "Can Ned co- of course Ned can come. You think I'm going to deny you your only friend? On your birthday, no less? I'm hurt, Peter. Truly."

Shaking his head, Peter let out a soft huff. "He's not my only friend."

"You have _other_ friends?" Tony asked, setting his tools down to straighten in surprise. That was news to him. Peter had been friends with Ned for as long as he could remember, and never anyone else. "Well then, by all means, invite them all."

"No, no, just Ned. I don't think MJ is really the camping type, anyway."

"What? He doesn't like to get down and dirty? Roast hotdogs and pee in the woods?"

"Nah, she's a lot more indoors-y." Peter shrugged, turned to put his torque wrench away, leaving Tony to gape at his back.

She? "Hold up, you mean to tell me you have a _girl friend_?"

When Peter swiveled back around, it was with a scrunched face of… discomfort? Somewhere between smelling rotten eggs and confusion. "I have a friend that is a girl. And I use the term 'friend' loosely, here."

Tony was actually giddy, and it was only partially because MJ was a girl. Peter had another friend. He loved Ned, really, he was a great kid, brilliant with a computer, but he had been telling Peter for ages to expand his world a little bit, meet people, go to parties and do everything Tony would never have done in his own youth. "Spill. I want details."

"Dad," Peter groaned.

"Peter," Tony intoned almost mockingly.

"She's- just- around, a lot, I guess. She sits at our table at lunch, sort of. She's on the decathlon team. Mostly she just hangs around and tells me I'm an idiot and reads, like, a book a day, and-and draws, and that's it."

"Mhm."

"It is," Peter insisted.

"Sure, of course it is, kid."

Tony, for one, was thrilled, especially with how agonizing the conversation seemed to be for Peter.

Branwyn was about done. Perhaps their next project would be MJ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What have we here? Happiness? Banter? The world, not ending? More likely than you think.


End file.
